I have
recently read Artie’s book entitled ‘Chop
Chop’ and found it both hilarious and interesting with adventurous and
mysterious twists. I had to read from start to finish in one go – couldn’t put
it down.

Leanne Pascoe

It has been an absolute pleasure to type this novel for
Artie. He has so far been a life-long friend and I admire his wit and love of
life. I found it distracting to type and read the book; I just wanted to keep
reading!

I wish Artie all the luck in the world with the success
of ‘Chop Chop’ and in life. He is a
wonderful, genuine man and I love him to bits.

Danielle Christie

A
non-stop page turner, cleverly constructed, alive with plots and sub-plots, plus
humour and murder with a great ending. Well done, Artie.

P.G. Horton

All in
all Artie, and without prejudice, it is a riveting read, and I look forward to
you enjoying the benefits.

“Shit!” said Uncle Tony. I knew that such a
subtle emanation from the lips of my God-fearing uncle, Tony Romano, meant
trouble – Trouble with a capital ‘T’. I did notice that the enunciation was
perfect. Despite living in Numboola for close on fifty years, my Uncle Tony has
difficulty with English, as do most of the Italian farmers who established
tobacco farms in the local Mareeba area many years ago. I followed his concerned
gaze down the hill. Through the stunted eucalypts that surround our drying shed,
a large cloud of red Queensland
dust could be seen tracking up the dirt access road that swings up the hill to
our farm.

This track veers from the highway that leads to the North
Queensland city of Cairns,
about forty clicks away.

“Shit!” I said. Emerging through the angry dust was a plain
blue Ford Falcon sedan with the telltale twin aerials sprouting from the boot.
They may as well have had ‘NARC’ printed across the doors. I looked at the
absolute despair etched into the dark rugged old face of my uncle.

“Bastardo! Bastardo! They dob us again,” he said in
resignation. We watched as fear, in the shape of DI Charlie Wessells, poured
from the Ford Falcon.

Let me explain the situation that has led to this point in
time. The reason why my dad, Mario Romano and Dino, my cousin, Uncle Tony’s son,
are doing a stretch in the local slammer ‘LilyValley’
prison farm. It began when the bloody Government blindsided us with a monster
called globalisation, which we believe is basically ‘selling’ the country. Try
as I might I still can’t accept what they are doing to us. Now I reckon I’m not
the sharpest knife in the drawer, but those rotten pricks have blood on their
hands! I’m not going all tragic on you here, but it is important to explain why
we have had to resort to a life of so-called crime.They stopped us selling our tobacco.

Now tobacco has been the life-blood of dozens of Italian
families in our area for 150 years. The social consequences of what the
Government has done were, and still are, bloody awful – suicides, bankruptcies,
broken homes. The list goes on. Sorry about that, but without it what follows
wouldn’t make much sense. Suddenly, the fruit of our labour has become
contraband. We tried to survive by tapping into some lucrative southern markets,
mainly Mafia controlled, butwe knew we had to be very, very careful.

This new enterprise started in rather a hasty, bumbling way.
Dad and Mario decided it would be a piece of piss to chuck a bale of ‘illegal’
tobacco onto the back of the ute, chuck a tarp over it, and drive off to Brisbane in the middle of
the night.They might have
even made it, but for a stroke of bad luck. They didn’t know that a flash flood
was to hit the MulgraveRiverBridge
at Gordonvale.

After being washed off the bridge, the ute became snagged in
a log jamb. They were eventually towed to safety, with the load very much
intact, by a very brave Mr Plod, who promptly slapped them in irons, had them in
court before you could say ‘Bob’s your uncle’, and subsequently delivered them
to ‘Lily Valley’. He got a citation. Dad and Mario got six months. They must be
ready for release any time now. We already knew that we had undercover agents
entrenched in the Atherton Tablelands, but what totally pissed us off, even
though us wog families had closed ranks as Italian families tend to do, was the
fact that the ‘fuzz’ was greasing palms for information on who was smuggling
chop-chop, the commonly accepted name for our now illicit produce, and how it
was being transported.

Now, as far as prisons go, ‘LilyValley’
is not too bad. TV, recreation facilities, gym, you name it, they have it. Keep
your nose clean, take care picking up the soap in the shower, and you’ll
survive. When you lob in there, they check you out to see if you have any
expertise in any given field. Naturally Dad and Mario were allocated to growing
things in the farm’s garden, and being there makes it easy for us chuck a few
grams of ‘wacky-weed’ over the fence. ‘Hooch’ or
‘Grass’all netted a few extra bucks for the ‘save the
farm’ fund. This is also the fruit of our labour. We all know that stuff is
illegal, but that’s not the bloody point here is it? A man’s got to make a quid.
You well might ask ‘how do I know all this?’

Perhaps I should introduce myself. My dear Italian Momma and
Poppa called me Arturo! For Christ’s sake! That name will not be mentioned
again! My friends call me Skin; not that I’m skinny. The reason for it is
because my big brother, Mario, was called Fatty. Now I’m six foot tall, that’s
with my pair of R. M. Williams on. I’m twenty-five years old, fit as a drover’s
dog and I think I look like I should; a bit ‘Woggie’. Dad reckons I couldn’t get
a fuck in a brothel with a fist full of fifties, but I’ve got news for him. I’m
going to suggest that we sow oats as an alternate crop to tobacco and, believe
me, I’ve been practicing.

Now, the reason I know all that stuff about prison, is
because I’ve been there. Dobbed in! We now know, through the family underground,
the identity of the arsehole responsible for my sojourn at the prison farm, but
I’ll get back to him as soon as I have censored my description of that
particular arsehole. Of course I was only growing the weed for my own personal
use. Six months the bastards put me away for. I only had a measly twenty five
plants. Didn’t I get the rough end of the pineapple! But, righto! Let’s get back
to that fundamental orifice of the rectal variety, which under censorship, still
equates as arsehole!

There is a family of Sicilians, who have long been suspected
of being associated with a Melbourne mafia gang,
living three farms down from us, on the main highway towards Cairns. There are three sons, and one of these
is a real heavy bastard, a vile bully of a man. One day we spotted him up one of
the power pylons that traverse our property. If we hadn’t seen the bright
splinter of light reflecting off the rim of his binoculars we would never have
spotted him. We ran through the scrub, getting close enough to verify that it
really was this vile bully, locally known as Sick Sam Bellini. Yeah, it was him
alright, scoping directly at my 25 precious marijuana plants. We were going to
harvest the crop in a couple of days, but knowing that this ‘sicko’ was onto us,
and would be on his mobile right now to the Narcs, forced our hand. We had
better do it immediately.

By the time we got back to the shed, to get the gear required
to do the job, the Narcs were barrelling up the drive. Busted! The arsehole
hadn’t wasted any time using his mobile! That, in a nutshell, is the first round
of events that Bellini was involved in that resulted in one of our mob ending up
in the slammer ‘Lily Valley’ for growing a bit of the green, green grass of the
Tablelands, and my introduction to efficient soap retrieval.

The second event that involved ‘Sick Sam’ eventuated after
our livelihood became an illegal activity. Strange as it may seem, it is not
illegal to grow and process tobacco, but you try and flog the bloody stuff and
they’re on you like a ton of bloody bricks. Anyhow, what happened next was our
second attempt at smuggling chop-chop.

The first stage of our supposedly slick operation was to get
1,000 kilos down to Rivertown, to where my cousin Lou and his delightful missus,
Di, had their prawn trawler based. From there, it would be transported by sea to
Brisbane, where it would be picked up by an old bikie mate I went to
NudgeeCollege with, Big Danny.
What he did with it, we didn’t want to know. He could please him bloody self
provided Lou and Di docked back in Rivertown with 150 grand in their kick.

Let’s go back to the beginning of our super slick operation.
We did some pretty cool alterations to my old Tojo ute. It had a timber tray
back, and surrounding the timber was a frame of 50-millimetre steel U-section.
By replacing this with 100-millimetre steel, we had created enough space to
install a false floor. Diabolical, eh! Although just a narrow space, it was just
enough to pack in 1,000 kilos of chop-chop. We sprayed the cavity with three
coats of epoxy resin, knowing that the fuzz were now using sniffer dogs that
could detect the delightfully pungent aroma of fresh tobacco. It would be a
simple matter of unscrewing a couple of the top boards, and running a knife down
through the epoxy resin to remove the baccy, which was sealed in ten kilo
zip-lock bags. This of course would be done very covertly, under cover of
darkness, when we got to Lou’s boat in Rivertown. That about brings us up to
speed.

Back to the dusty blue Ford Falcon as the feared cop stepped
out. I suppose it would explain Uncle Tony’s expletive “Slut!” You know what I
mean! I urged Uncle Tony to stay calm, what a hypocrite. I could feel the old
blender flicking on to number three in my gut, this called for instant
deployment of the old sphincter! We had about 30 seconds grace, as the cop
strode leisurely from the dusty Ford Falcon.

“Uncle, try and look relaxed!” I said, as I managed to get
myself under some semblance of control. I couldn’t help a strong feeling of déjà
vu, knowing that fucker Bellini had done it again. You understand the old system
of supply and demand. The same applies to grass and chop-chop. We knew that Sick
Sam was the puppet of a top mafia don in Melbourne. They were simply trying to take us
out of the market. I was looking at DI Charlie Wessells. This is the second time
he’d come to our place. Last time he was here he gave me a couple of silver
bracelets and took me off for a holiday in the country. Now, as cops go, he’s
not a bad bloke. I still race sidecars with his son Vernon Wessells.

He said, “G’day, Tony. G’day, Skin. Howyagoin?”

We both acknowledged him with a pair of shaky ‘G’days’.

He said, “Skin, I’m off duty. Just thought I’d pop in and
make sure you’re on the straight and narrow. Everything OK? A little bird told
me you might be up to no good.”

I was trying to read the intense look as well as the obvious
warning in his eyes. There was some thing else; as if he was telling me to be
careful. Perhaps my strong friendship with his son had some meaning for him.

“Well,” he said, “now that I can see you’re OK I’ll head off
back down the hill to Cairns.
See ya, Tony. See ya, Skin. If you can’t be good be careful!”

Well, I must admit I was stunned. He said so little and yet
so much. Uncle Tony was questioning me with his eyes and hands, arms
outstretched with palms skyward. This is just an Italian gesture.

“What he say? What he say? He say what I think he say?”

Now just because he can’t handle the lingo so well; I mean
he’s only been here for fifty years. Give him break! But he’s as sharp as a
tack. You have to get up at sparrow fart to beat him. I know he, too, was
wrestling with all the little nuances of Charlie Wessells’ subtle warning. “If
you can’t be good, be careful if you can’t be good, be careful, if you can’t be
good, be careful.” Like a mantra, over and over in my mind. My mind was doing
some crazy cranial blockies. I had to take this seriously. What makes it more to
the point is a little conversation that Charlie and I had the day he walked me
to court, after he had nabbed me for growing loco weed. He pulled me aside out
of earshot of the local uniforms. He said, “You know son, I want you to know
that this is just not sitting right with me. I think that you’re a pretty decent
young bloke and I know that this conversation will stay on board. When I was
about your age, I did exactly the same thing. I was still smoking dope for a
couple of years as a young constable. The only difference is I never got caught.
And I think that if they were to be honest about it, there are many, many
officers who have got through their teens to young manhood in a similar fashion,
so believe it or not, a lot of them, like me, suffer a little from hypocrisy.
OK. Let’s go and see how big a holiday the magistrate wants to give you.”

“Uncle, I think we have just spoken to a man who deserves our
great respect.”

Uncle Tony knew this already. “I told you the old bugger is
always a jump ahead of me.”

“Well, Uncle Tony, what’s to be done now? It looks like we
have an informer.”

Neither of us said a word, but we had similar thoughts as we
stared across the river towards the Bellini farm.

I turned to look at
the ute we had put so much work into. One thing was certain. We couldn’t stop
now as we desperately needed funds. This farm had been our family’s whole life.
I walked over to my uncle, gave him a hug, and said very quietly, “Uncle Tony, I
promise you, I give my solemn word, our little load of
Numboola’s finest tobacco will be loaded
onto Lou and Di’s prawn trawler, the ‘Sweet Fanny Adams’. I reckon the only
sensible thing to do now, in order of priorities, is to rip the tops off a few
tinnies, and try to find a way to complete the transfer without getting sprung.
I tossed a XXXX to Uncle Tony and we parked our bums on the tray of the ute to
ponder the situation. We knew who and how...it had to be Sick Sam. Probably
another nice little earn from the Narcs or the mafia, or both. In country areas
like Numboola, nothing is ever locked. Nothing to stop Sick Sam from snooping to
date that is. OK, the Narcs know that we are planning to shift some baccy, and
they probably know how, but I’m bloody sure they don’t know where to, or when.
As I said before, you can build as many secret compartments and stuff them frill
of as much chop-chop as you like, just don’t leave the farm with it. Well, at
least they don’t know the when, or the where to, so thanks to DI Charlie
Wessells for the things he never said.